At last, we found some basic characteristics in Chinese kinship. Couple and child-parent are still the pivots in present urban China. Filial piety is undergoing many changes. For adult children, parents are important in instrumental supports. And siblings are hardly regarded as expected supporters. / For urban Chinese, close-kin playa prominent role in all the support networks. Close-kin include adult children, parents, and siblings. Additionally, supportive roles of different kin are diffused. Spouse and adult children are the most prominent source of support for dealing with both instrumental and emotional problems. In particular, their emotional supports are more significantly beneficial to people's mental health. Parents are the important instrumental supporters, rather than in emotional aspects. Siblings are sitable for contact, but they are not the expected supporters. Extended kin relations are insignificant in any of support dimensions. / It is widely recognized that social relationships have powerful effects on mental health. This empirical study aims at examining this theory among urban Chinese. Based on the dataset of "social networks and mental health in Beijing in 2000", the focus of this research is how depression of the residents in Beijing is related to their kinship (especially, close-kin) networks and supports. The network structural characters include "network size", "frequency of contact", and "residence distance". The functional elements of support include instrumental support and emotional support. CES-D (The Centre for Epidemiological Studies of Depression scale) is used to measure depression. / The major findings in theoretical dimension are: (1) Social supports have main effects, namely social supports are helpful to mental health regardless of stressors people might experience. (2) Some kinds of kinship networks have direct and indirect effects (mediated by kinship supports) on depression. This result also partially confirms "the support argument", which suggests that the social networks enhance the likelihood of accessing support which in turn provides the protective function against distress. / 孫薇薇. / Adviser: Rance Pui Leng Lee. / Source: Dissertation Abstracts International, Volume: 72-10, Section: A, page: . / Thesis (Ph.D.)--Chinese University of Hong Kong, 2009. / Includes bibliographical references (p. 200-212). / Electronic reproduction. Hong Kong : Chinese University of Hong Kong, [2012] System requirements: Adobe Acrobat Reader. Available via World Wide Web. / Electronic reproduction. [Ann Arbor, MI] : ProQuest Information and Learning, [201-] System requirements: Adobe Acrobat Reader. Available via World Wide Web. / Abstracts in Chinese and English. / Sun Weiwei.